Those afternoons in the spring, the campus so serene and placid, began to turn into sparring matches in the tutorial rooms.

Mingxia's circle met in a conference space in ad-Dafira Hall, a small, intimate room for a dozen desks in a circle, with a sun roof open to the sky; a real one, not a link window, that allowed the afternoon sun to pass over the heads of students deep in debate. Each session, the circle of chair desks became a sparring ring within fifteen minutes.

Whenever Mingxia entered the ring, she still spoke meekly, like a timid mouse. "Some of the problems of creation may be unsolvable, yet we know that the stars speak to us, and listen. Not only did they teach us the schematics for the Star Dial, they transmitted the materials to construct it — to construct a single dial, to be controlled by Constellation, granting control over magic to the Solari Empire alone in the world. It seems intentional, which may imply that the stars, being sentient, act and react not according to natural laws the way physics and the sciences do, but according to choice or agency."

She would come back again and again to her previous debate with Storm Gloriam, like a thorn she couldn't get out of her flesh. 

"Perhaps the stars make decisions, for example how much to reveal to us, and when."

And some days Inyanga would come to her defence. They would take on Storm together. Her voice held no such timidity, particularly when butting heads. Leaning forward out of her chair desk, Inyanga would snap, "Listen, Novae Storm, no one's saying we should stop all research and experimentation. No one has argued any such thing. It is worth considering whether certain questions delve into the unknowable." A new emotion filled Mingxia's belly when she took her side. A swell of warmth at the tiny expression of allegiance.

Storm was always like, "But isn't it a waste of time? How is it worth considering? It's not like we're going to run experiments with the hypothesis, 'We can never know whether it's possible to know anything.'"

If Amafu were still in their circle, Mingxia imagined she would joke, "Why does the tutorial for Practical Spellcasting always descend into low level theory and, dare I say it, outright philosophy?"

Momentarily, Mingxia thought she would perhaps try to deliver the joke herself, attract some more allies, provoke some laughs — yet she feared her meek voice would be too quiet. The comedic effects Amafu created relied on good timing and bombastic vocals.

Most nights Mingxia lay awake worrying about every word she said that day. Had she sounded stupid? Had she said anything wrong? Stated any falsehoods like they were facts? Sounded disrespectful when critiquing anyone's ideas? Each statement, comment, postulate, she turned over in her mind. Thoughts racing, she often couldn't sleep. Yet eventually those thoughts turned to reasoning, and she followed the logic to conclude that she should be grateful to have an adversary like Storm.

She was speaking in tutorial consistently now. She should be grateful, even if her palms were sweaty and she thought her voice would shake if she didn't focus on puffing air into her lungs and pushing the sound from her diaphragm. Doctor Azikaze said even if it was scary, her sessions with Storm were an excellent execution of exposure therapy, and if she continued, her body would eventually learn there was nothing to be afraid of, there was no danger. Nothing could harm her, what people thought of her could not harm her. There was no danger to speaking in a circle of strangers who were almost becoming acquaintances. Her body would learn she was safe, nothing could harm her, eventually her body would learn, Doctor Azikaze assured her. At the end of the semester, Mingxia received XIV/XX on her participation, and, in all honesty, she had Storm to thank. She was up to four or five sentences per tutorial session.

Yet she still. did. not. like. Storm. Gloriam.

Summer break allowed her the free time to recuperate, recover, re-examine her goals, and she promised herself that next Septembris she would go early. She'd sit in the front row, even though she hated that time before class when friends would find each other, chat about their weekends, pass notes, review the maestras, and gossip about everyone else, while Mingxia sat alone, usually trying to think of something to say to the person next to her, usually failing.

She promised herself she would join the girls who always had friendly looks on their faces, it was so silly that it had taken her this long.

Yet this Septembris, competition proved fiercer than ever. Secundae students had class in a single lecture hall in al-Maysan as a cohort every morning, and the first three rows filled before dawn.

Now Mingxia had a tutorial for Neuromagic 201 on dies Lunes with Amafu and Storm, and one for Levitation 200 on dies Martis with Inyanga and Storm, and not only did Mingxia feel too shy to join in the chatter after the discussion, she felted exhausted, drained, often humiliated even if there was no reason to be, and ready to run for the door. All of it drained her week after week. Even though before tutorial the girls gathered in a circle, Minxgia was considering getting there early, and like a snap it would all be over. She would be in with the circle, she would make joke, she would feel silly she had spent so long alone, and like a bad dream it would be over. Yet that dies Martis, after a particularly stressful discussion battle the day before (in which she had contributed perhaps up to thirteen sentences and felt wiped out and ready to conk out on a bench outside when the clock struck hora septa), she found herself dreading tutorial more then ever.

Yes, she had been leveling up. No, there was nothing to be afraid of. Yet every time she peeked over her Levitation for Intermidiae textbook to check the clock, she felt the dread ahead of time, the prickles she would feel all over when she put up her hand, her heart rate rising until she could feel a pressure and an uncomfortable energy that wouldn't dissipate, and the deep exhaustion that would come after — the dread absorbed her now, where she sprawled out with textbooks in ad-Dafira library. It filled her in advance, she hadn't even gone yet.

Sinking down in the comfy armchair (ad-Dafira, unlike al-Maysan, was not anti-grav; landed on the ground, it was completely grounded by gravity), as the seconds ticked closer to class time, she just felt too tired to go. Simultaneously, she felt too high strung to go.

It wasn't a conscious decision, really. Yet (with about ten minutes until class time) she did get out of her pillowy chair and crash back down into one that didn't face the clock. Absorbed in her note-taking and highlighting the textbook with her gnomon in moonlight colored ink that would fade by the time she needed to sell the book back to the used bookstore, she distracted herself to the extent that she wasn't really aware of the exact time, and thus she wasn't really aware when the time passed hora sexta — she did not look at the clock, and she didn't plan to any time soon.

Reasoning that she was behind on theory, some students could already execute anti-gravity spells, she would learn better from the textbook than she would in the discussion — this was a better use of her time.

Time ticked by with her awareness of it cloudy, inexact. And with cloudy, inexact awareness that she was doing so, Mingxia did something that she never had before. She skipped class.

By the end of the hour, in the fatigue that seemed like a response without a stimulus — as if she were conditioned to feel like shit at this hour every dies Martis — she became so drowsy in the fog of textbook learning and so sleepy in the gravity that held her in that chair that by the end of the hour she nodded off for a nap.

When she woke up, she felt more awake than she had in a long while. She felt energized, rejuvenated, reanimated.

She felt . . . relief.

Mingxia is just one star in a constellation. Inyanga is another. If you're looking for more Constellations, the series can be read in any order. Bay's Star, Izara's Star, and a novel in the universe entitled Stars Rise can all be found on my profile.

Thank you for reading; if you enjoyed it, please fuel my magic world by leaving a star for me.